US strike destroys bridge, restricts Daesh in Mosul

BAGHDAD/GENEVA: U.S. forces backing an Iraqi army campaign against Daesh in Mosul carried out an air strike on a bridge spanning the Tigris river, restricting militant movements between western and eastern parts of the city, a U.S. official said on Tuesday.

U.S.-trained Iraqi Counter-Terrorism Service forces are pushing deeper into east Mosul, the last major city controlled by the hard-line group in Iraq, while army and police units, militias and Kurdish fighters surround it to the west, south and north.

Militants have steadily retreated into Mosul from outlying areas. The army's early advances have slowed as militants dig in, using the more than 1 million civilians inside the city as a shield, moving through tunnels, and hitting troops with suicide bombers, snipers and mortar fire.

Five bridges span the Tigris that runs through Mosul. They have all been mined and boobytrapped by militants who took over the city two years ago as they swept through northern Iraq and declared a caliphate in parts of Iraq and neighbouring Syria.

Despite planting the mines, Daesh fighters have so far been able to continue using those bridges which have not yet been destroyed by air strikes.

Air Force Colonel John Dorrian, a Baghdad-based spokesman for the U.S.-led coalition, said on Tuesday an air strike hit the number four bridge, the southernmost, in the past 48 hours.

"This effort impedes Daesh's freedom of movement in Mosul. It inhibits their ability to resupply or reinforce their fighters throughout the city," he said using an Arabic acronym for the militant group.

A month ago, a U.S. air strike destroyed the No. 2 bridge in the centre of the city and two weeks later another strike took out the No. 5 bridge to the north.

The United Nations' International Organisation for Migration expressed concern that the destruction of the bridges could obstruct the evacuation of civilians.

"That is a concern of IOM because this is going to leave hundreds of thousands without a quick way out of the combat," spokesman Joel Millman told reporters in Geneva.

COMMANDERS CAPTURED

The battle for Mosul, launched five weeks ago, is turning into the largest military campaign in more than a decade of conflict in Iraq since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein.

The Iraqi military estimates around 5,000 Daesh fighters are in Mosul. A 100,000-strong coalition of Iraqi government forces, Kurdish fighters and paramilitary units is surrounding the city.

Mosul's capture would be a major step towards dismantling the caliphate, and Daesh leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, believed to have withdrawn to a remote area near the Syrian border, has told his fighters to stay and fight to the end.

Counter terrorism units and an army armoured division are the only forces to have breached the city limits from the eastern side. Other army and federal police units have yet to enter the northern and the southern sides.

A Kurdish security source said on Tuesday four Daesh commanders were captured in a U.S. special operation near Baaj, a town close to the Syrian border. Baghdadi was not among them. The coalition did not confirm the operation.

Daesh said it launched an attack on the north-western front of Mosul, seizing a duty free zone and oil depots located a dozen kilometres from the city limits. The army did not confirm the claim.